Evaporation of a sessile water droplet subjected to forced convection in humid environment

The evaporation of a sessile droplet is here investigated numerically with a design of experiment approach. Boundary conditions are chosen based on forced convection in humid air, i.e., mimicking the conditions inside a dishwasher. Computational fluid dynamic simulations of an axisymmetrical droplet placed on a heated plate show that relative humidity, initial contact angle, plate temperature, and temperature difference between plate and air all have significant effect on the initial evaporation rate. For the studied conditions, relative humidity is the most significant factor while the magnitude of the velocity and type of internal flow are insignificant within a 95% confidence interval.     

Coping with anger-provoking situations, psychosocial working conditions, and ECG-detected signs of coronary heart disease.

This study explored the association among coping, psychosocial work factors, and signs of coronary heart disease (CHD) among prison staff (777 men, 345 women). Electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings at rest, health examinations, and a questionnaire were used. A high level of covert coping in men and a low level of open coping in women showed the strongest association with signs of CHD. Among several traditional biological and lifestyle risk factors, only age and systolic blood pressure in men and none in the case of women were significantly associated with CHD signs in the final multivariate regression analyses. A coping style of repressed emotions and actions in anger-provoking situations, independent of traditional risk factors, seems to be associated with a prevalence of ECG signs in male and female prison staff. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstraction and subsumption in modular verification of C programs

Formal Methods in System Design - The type-theoretic notions of existential abstraction, subtyping, subsumption, and intersection have useful analogues in separation-logic proofs of imperative...     

Service life assessment and moisture influence on bio-based composites

A race towards a more sustainable society is going on worldwide, and decreasing dependence on fossil resources in energy and transport sectors are main goals. One path to decreased oil usage is development of lightweight materials from renewable resources like bio-based composites. However, these new bio-based materials not only have to compete in mechanical performance but also have to restrain environmental loads like moisture and temperature over time. In this study, two bio-based composites have been compared to an oil-based composite in terms of long-term properties and water absorption behaviour. The long-term behaviour is determined by dynamic mechanical thermal analysis, DMTA and time temperature superposition, TTSP. The water uptake is determined by submersion of specimens into water and tracking their weight change over time. The moisture influence is characterised in form of water uptake and change in the master curves created by TTSP procedure. The results show that there is a significant difference in long-term performance between the bio-based and oil-based composites. It is realised that the bio-based composites can be a good alternative for some applications especially when taking their eco-friendly nature into account.     

On the Settling Velocity in a Nonstationary Atmosphere

A general drag coefficient has been used in the equation of motion for solid spherical particles. The time constants, stopping times, and settling velocities in a still atmosphere are computed for a wide range of Reynolds numbers. The settling times are compared with the times calculated when a particle is falling in a fluctuating atmosphere. It is found that such particles will get significantly longer settling times owing to an enhancement in the drag coefficient caused by an increase of the relative velocity between the particle and the fluid. Surprisingly, this enhancement is present for a horizontal wind field due to a coupling between particle motion in different directions, but it is also present for a vertical field. The effect is most pronounced in the intermediate Reynolds number region, slightly above the Stokes range, where the increase in settling time can be more than 10% for certain fluctuation frequencies and amplitudes. This indicates that such particles must be carefully treated when they are falling in a nonstationary medium     

Evaluating Pore Space in Macroporous Ceramics with Water‐Based Porosimetry

We show that water‐based porosimetry (WBP), a facile, simple, and nondestructive porosimetry technique, accurately evaluates both the pore size distribution and throat size distribution of sacrificially templated macroporous alumina. The pore size distribution and throat size distribution derived from the WBP evaluation in uptake (imbibition) and release (drainage) mode, respectively, were corroborated by mercury porosimetry and X‐ray micro‐computed tomography (μ‐CT). In contrast with mercury porosimetry, the WBP also provided information on the presence of “dead‐end pores” in the macroporous alumina.     

A projection method for closed-loop identification

A new method for closed-loop identification that allows fitting the model to the data with arbitrary frequency weighting is described and analyzed. Just as the direct method, this new method is applicable to systems with arbitrary feedback mechanisms. This is in contrast to other methods, such as the indirect method and the two-stage method, that assume linear feedback. The finite sample behavior of the proposed method is illustrated in a simulation study.